So I had one crazy week this past week (Dec 14-21 2025). I went from still being on the outside looking in trying to have a shot of making it back to the Worlds Championships for the second time, to having a decent shot of actually doing just that, which as mentioned before, was my hopes for this season anyway.
I didn't bother much with Hawai'i or Anaheim because they're too expensive but San Francisco is perfect for me, especially since it's the one place in America I keep going to anyway (and I don't have to worry about finding for a place to stay too).
But yeah, I somehow won my 2nd GBL of the season, which is already more than what I got last season. And I won a 3rd the next day. And I won a 4th two days after that! And all that were done with the same 60 card list, that being Charizard ex/Noctowl, aka Dawn Zard.
The same deck that won the recent Stuttgart Regional (apart from one card) and also, the same concept of a deck I was secretly testing for the Premier Ball League back in November so I was pretty comfortable with it. I ended up playing that for 5 GBLs, scoring points in all 5 and as for the 6th GBL, I was too tired and switched to a different deck and got no points out of it.
The List
Nothing special about the list, except I cut the 4th Nest Ball for a Pidgeotto as an out to item lock stuff, namely Dragapult decks and Gardevoir decks with their Budew and Frillish nonsense. I mean it's not the greatest answers because they can still Iono my Pidgeotto away after I have taken it from a Fan Call but I still need an out to get my Pidgeot ex up and going anyway and that's the best one, especially with the Singapore meta in mind.
Everything else is just normal. The 4 Dawns is the engine for the deck so the 3-3 Noctowl just helps everything to work the way it should and we have our main support in Pidgeot ex and sometimes Fezandipiti ex and the two main attackers in Charizard ex and Terapagos ex. Fan Rotom can take some cheap prizes early on in the game and Pidgeot ex itself can be a good attacker too. And of course we still do have the Dusknoir line to either take a prize or help set-up some big plays, sometimes with Briar in mind.
I've seen a few people trying out Unfair Stamp and Counter Catcher in place of the 2nd Iono and Prime Catcher, I'm personally not a fan of it. The deck is trying to be as aggressive as posssible in most games so we usually don't have time to use Counter Catcher. And I've just never been a fan of Unfair Stamp personally, that card has lost me way too many games it should have helped won me so I'd rather just not play it anymore. Sure Boss and Stamp sounds fun but you can also do Prime and Iono anyway.
Before my first GBL of the season, I was sitting in 17th which was not a bad spot I'd say, mostly thanks to my GBL win at Brick's Play. I felt I hadn't really done well at that point in all honestly, with only one other Top 8 finish and most of my points coming from UBLs and PBL, but they were all single-digit scores so it wasn't good enough for me.
GBL #3 Season 2 @ Mint Condition - 12th/40 - 4/2/0 (+8 LP)- R1 L Dragapult ex/Dusknoir
- R2 L Dragapult ex/Dusknoir
- R3 W Charizard ex/Noctowl
- R4 W Gholdengo ex/Lunatone
- R5 W Dragapult ex/Dusknoir
- R6 W Gardevoir ex
Not the best of start to the season so far, especially starting 0-2 after meeting two Dragapults. Sure the match-up is bad but if I can have a decent start, I know I can beat them. The problem was I had a dead hand both times, and to make things worse, I prized Pidgeotto in one matchup and Charmeleon in the other.
Even my R3 game wasn't looking good at one point, I had a slower start then my opponent but then he made a mistake by using his Dusknoir to take out my Charizard instead of going after my lone Duskull on bench which gave me the opportunity to go for the Dusk Bomb + Briar play for the win.
Everything else after that went smoothly. My R4 opponent bricked and I took a giant lead. My R5 opponent had a slow start for a Pult player and I managed to take all 6 prizes with Terapagos ex! The last game was a tricky one but my Klefki bought me enough turns to make a comeback to win it at the end.
I ended up 12th, the lowest resistance of those on 4-2 purely because I started 0-2 and one of the guys that beat me dropped so I had no shot of making Top 8 here. I still felt a bit vindicated that at least the Pidgeotto addition did help me in my games today.
GBL #4 Season 2 @ Happyland Collectibles - 1st/32 - 4/0/0 (+30 LP)
- R1 W Dragapult ex/Dusknoir
- R2 W Ceruledge ex
- R3 W Alakazam/Dudunsparce
- R4 W Alakazam/Dudunsparce
You could tell how annoyed I was seeing a Pult at R1 again but this time, I had one of my better starts, I had my board set-up near perfectly and then I noticed something while I was doing my deck check....where are my Pidgeots? Yup I prized both of them. So I had to change my set-up a little bit but thankfully it still all worked out in the end, and I never did use a Pidgeot in that match.
R2 was looking bad initially, all I had was Klefki and I was praying my opponent didn't have a way to donk me. He went to grab Squawkabilly ex and tried to use it's ability before I had to remind him of what Klefki did. And that pretty much won me the game because I did top deck a Dawn to set up while my opponent couldn't do much.
R3 was Alakazam, a weird matchup. He had a very slow start and prized his Psyduck so my Dusks were able to destroy his set-up before he could get anything going. Not the same for R4, although my opponent was bricking at one point. He had taken an Alakazam but didn't evolve. He had 11-12 cards in hand and I don't know why, I went for an Iono that turn when he had already struggled to get an Alakazam going and that almost cost me the game.
Thankfully I got my Klefki/Prime at the right time after that Iono to go down to 2 prizes while he was at 4 prizes, and with him getting an easy KO on my Zard and going down to 2, all I needed was to up my 2nd Zard and get Briar for game and I got it from my Noctowl off the Fezandipiti.
There was no 5th round here because the other x-0 player lost to a downpair which meant I was the only 4-0 player at the end of Round 4, which means the event ended one round early as there was a clear winner!
Finally got my 2nd GBL win of the season, and in my head I was telling myself, "2 down, 6 more to go". I knew my realistic chance of making it to Worlds is probably get 8 GBL wins if possible, knowing my luck with UBLs and hopefully a good enough showing at the MBL.
GBL #5 Season 2 @ Mint Condition - 1st/32 - 5/0/0 (+30 LP)
- R1 W Ceruledge ex
- R2 W Mega Box
- R3 W Charizard ex/Noctowl
- R4 W Charizard ex/Noctowl
- R5 W Mega Kangaskhan ex/Bouffalant
First up was against a Ceruledge and he had a slow start and couldn't quite comeback from it. R2 was Mega Box which was a bit tricky, he had some really well timed Penny(s) to make it harder for me to get the KO, Terapagos was the MVP here for setting me up to win the game, as did Klefki.
Two mirror matches up next, my opponent in R3 went first which made things tricky for me. He couldn't get around my two Duskull trap near the end of the game which won me the game. Similar story for R4 but he had a slower start so I got to reach that point much faster.
The last round was Tank Khan which I knew was a tough matchup, and I saw my starting hand and I thought....welp I'm cooked, no 2-peat for me haha. And my opponent has two Bouffalants and passes! So now I had a chance to try to take advantage of this by setting my Terapagos ex up to take out the first Bouff and hope he doesn't have a way to get anything else down. He got a Stretcher and I had to KO another one.
Then he top decks Arven to set up his board but by this point, I had taken 3 prizes on just Bouffalants which meant his Mega Kangaskhan wasn't as tanky as it should be and I managed to get the KO on it with Zard + Dusknoir.
Two GBL wins in two days is just crazy, especially with how variance can play such a big factor in these games, and it being a bo1 format for us here in Asia! I wasn't expecting this at the start of the week, especially with how that first GBL went for me. "3 down, 5 more to go", I just have to believe I can do it.
GBL #7 Season 2 @ Cardboard Collectibles - 11th/32 - 3/2/0 (+8 LP)
- R1 W Mega Kangaskhan ex/Bouffalant
- R2 L Dragapult ex/Dusknoir
- R3 L Dragapult ex/Dusknoir
- R4 W Gholdengo ex/Lunatone
- R5 W Gardevoir ex
R1 was tricky as this Khan Bouff player did manage to set up very early and got some Pennys at the right time to deny me some big 3 prize KOs and they also had a Golduck down at one point! But Terapagos and Charizard did apply enough pressure for me to get the double KOs I needed to win the game.
R2 and R3 were pretty much the same. Both vs Dragapult, both I had a dead starting hand, both I got stuck after an Iono + Budew. Both I just drew pass the whole way with no set-up. Those were really painful, I was hopeful of a 3-peat, I knew it was near impossible with the amount of Pults that day but I still wanted to think I could do it but alas it wasn't to be.
R4 vs Gholdengo was a smooth game for me, managed to get the big KO for game. R5 vs Gardevoir was anything but smooth, I went for a greedy play that almost cost me game but using Dusknoir then Stretcher to re-use it to KO two Ralts and then attacking the active Ralts. I almost forgot I had given her two prizes and with her Mega Diancie, she could easily take her last 2 prizes just from it. Thankfully my Iono bought me enough turns to go for the Prime + Briar for game. Not the best of days but 8 points is still ok I guess, better than most of my UBL and PBL scores funnily enough.
The 2 GBL wins had jumped me up from 17th all the way up to 6th, which is good enough at the moment. If I can stay there for the rest of the season, as mentioned before, it's the top 8 in standings who gets the Worlds invite so that would be the best scenario for me. I've done it once before back in 2023, maybe I can do it again in 2026?
GBL #8 Season 2 @ G28 Trading - 1st/32 - 5/0/0 (+30 LP)
- R1 W N's Zoroark ex
- R2 W Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex
- R3 W Future Box
- R4 W Dragapult ex/Dusknoir
- R5 W Ceruledge ex
R1 was tricky and not just because it was against N's Zoroark, I finally figured out why people said it was tough to play at G28 as we were sitting outside an you could feel the heat. And also the rain when it started to drizzle just for a bit. My starting hand had 2 Area Zero which was not a good thing as I knew he played that silly Watchtower card and sure enough, he used Iono and put the Watchtower down Turn 1. Thankfully I drew into Dawn and Rare Candy so I could get my Zard up and bench a Charmander to use Blazing Destruction to discard the Watchtower. He couldn't respond to my setup after that turn and managed to win from there but it was looking real tricky there.
R2 my opponent had a complete brick unfortunately so I got to get my Pidgeot and Zard up and took all my prizes as quickly as possible. R3 was a strange one, my opponent flipped over the mini Miraidon that I hadn't seen in forever, it was Future Box! So I knew in this matchup I didn't want to focus on getting Pidgeot up first but instead get the Terapagos up. I managed to get the clean KO on his Iron Hands with Terapagos ex. I was getting ready to set up for my Zards but I saw he was setting up a lot of Grass energies on his side so I decided to hold off and just focus on Terapagos + Pidgeot to get the next 2 prizes and have Zard up to take the final prizes to deny the Iron Leaves play.
R4 was up against Dragapult, the matchup I didn't want to see but I was bound to hit one as of the x-0s left, it was me, Ceruledge and two Pults. Thankfully he didn't get Budew down turn 1 but I also did not get my Pidgeot up Turn 2 with my weird starting hand. The big moment of the match come down to him setting up for a 3-prize on my Terapagos ex and Fan Rotom and I knew I could get around it with Pidgeot ex attacking his Pult with Blustery Wind and discarding my stadium to discard some of my benched Pokemon, I just needed to make sure I got two extra Pokemon on bench to discard the two obvious targets for him and managed to get there with Noctowl.
He did make things a bit hard by Turo-ing his Pult, all I needed was Zard to hit into it for the KO but his other Pult only had one energy on it so a 2-shot was still good enough to get me the win. Thankfully the other Pult at x-0 lost so it was Ceruledge for R5. And that was my 3rd GBL win in 5 days, how is that possible???
"4 down, 4 to go!" Now I actually do have a chance to make it to the World Championships in San Francisco next year thanks to these 3 GBL wins coming at the perfect time for me, especially since I'll have to miss the next few ones due to prior commitments (aka holiday).
Don't really need to mention the GBL at Brints, I decided to change it up and play Dragapult which was a bad mistake, I started 0-3, climbed back up to 3-3 and only finished 29th out of 64 players. I was tired after the G28 GBL and honestly, I probably should have gone home and rest and not play again, which is why I have this rule for myself to just play one event a day because I knew this would happen if I tried to play 2 in one day.
I just hope I had done the deck enough justice with the triple GBL win, I always believed in the Dawn concept before anyone even knew about it. And of course big thanks to Oscar Madsen for building these lists and helping me out initially too! He showed the first version of Dawn Zard back in October and I was already building the same list to try out myself. The man is just goated when it comes to deck building!
And hey I'm still playing Charizard ex which is my favourite deck and has been for the past 2 years at this point. Sadly I won't ever get to play it in a major event again but hey, I might as well strike while the iron is hot and try to give Charizard ex the best send-off I possibly can before it does rotate in April.
And it's not just IRL, I've been doing quite ok with this deck online too with my usual antics on Play Limitless. Sure, I don't have a good result on a big online tournament just yet but I've gotten two wins so far and bubbled out of decent finishes 7 times. I'm not even joking, 7 times! My score with Zard Noctowl online so far is 66-32 which is not bad I'd say, especially with how weird things can get online (a number of these losses are also down to bugs in the game).
I hope I can keep this run going, it's not easy winning these events, let alone trying to get into them! I missed out at yesterday's GBL even though there was a 50% chance to get in. That's just how it is sometimes. I just hope I can play well enough to get the last 4 GBL wins of the season somehow, I don't know how realistic it is but I'll try to get there. I do probably need one good UBL run to help me get there too.
On a personal note, I've already beaten my points score from last season which was 129, and hopefully I've done enough to better the 32nd place in the standings that I got for the 2023-24 AND 2024-25 seasons. Would be nice to repeat the 3rd place in the standings for 2022-23 but I know that's unlikely to happen. Of course, I could make my life a whole lot easier if I were to somehow get finals at MBL but that is still a long way to go, but for right now these GBLs have my full focus. Thanks for reading and I hope you all have a great time with the upcoming holiday period and a great 2026 moving forward!
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